nearer I found he was a prig. I bid him produce his cane in court, which he had left at the door. He did so, and I finding it to be very curiously clouded, with a transparent amber head, and a blue ribbon to hang upon his wrist, I immediately ordered my clerk Lillie to lay it up, and deliver out to him a plain joint, headed with walnut; and then, in order to wean him from it by degrees, permitted him to wear it three days in the week, and to abate proportionably till he found himself able to

go

alone. The second who appeared, came limping into the court : and setting forth in his petition many pretences for the use of a cane, I caused them to be examined one by one; but finding him in different stories, and confronting him with several witnesses who had seen him walk upright, I ordered Mr. Lillie to take in his cane, and rejected his petition as frivolous.

A third made his entry with great difficulty, leaning upon a slight stick, and in danger of falling every step he took. I saw the weakness of his hams; and hearing that he had married a young wife about a fortnight before, I bid him leave his cane, and gave him a new pair of crutches, with which he went off in great vigour and alacrity. This gentleman was succeeded by another, who seemed very much pleased while his petition was reading, in which he had represented, that he was extremely afflicted with the gout, and set his foot upon the ground with the caution and dignity which accompany that distemper. I suspected him for an impostor, and having ordered him to be searched, I committed him into the hands of Dr. Thomas Smith in King Street, (my own corn-cutter,) who attended in an outward room; and wrought so speedy a cure upon him, that I thought fit to send him also away without his cane.

While I was thus dispensing justice, I heard a noise in my outward room; and inquiring what was the occasion of it, my door-keeper told me, that they had taken up one in the very fact as he was passing by my door. They immediately brought in a lively, fresh-coloured young man, who made great resistance with hand and foot, but did not offer to make use of his cane, which hung upon his fifth button. Upon examination, I found him to be an Oxford scholar, who was just entered at the Temple. He at first disputed the jurisdiction of the court ; but being driven out of his little law and logic, he told me very pertly, that he looked upon

such a perpendicular creature as man to make a very imperfect figure without a cane in his hand. “It is well known (says he) we ought, according to the natural situation of our bodies, to walk upon our hands and feet; and that the wisdom of the ancients had described man to be an animal of four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night; by which they intimated, that a cane might very properly become part of us in some period of life." Upon which I asked him, “whether he wore it at his breast to have it in readiness when that period should arrive ? ” My young lawyer immediately told me, he had a property in it, and a right to hang it where he pleased, and to make use of it as he thought fit, provided that he did not break the peace

with it; and further said, that he never took it off his button, unless it were to lift it up at a coachman, hold it over the head of a drawer, point out the circumstances of a story, or for other services of the like nature, that are all within the laws of the land. I did not care for discouraging a young man who, I saw, would come to good; and because his heart was set upon his new purchase, I only ordered him to wear it about his neck, instead of hanging it upon his button, and so dismissed him.1

There were several appeared in court, whose pretensions I found to be very good, and therefore gave many their licences upon paying their fees; as many others had their licences renewed, who required more time for recovery

of their lameness than I had before allowed them.

Having despatched this set of my petitioners, there came in a well-dressed man, with a glass-tube in one hand and his petition in the other. Upon his entering the room, he threw back the right side of his wig, put forward his right leg, and advancing the glass to his right eye, aimed it directly at me. In the mean while, to make

my observations also, I put on my spectacles ; in which posture we surveyed each other for some time. Upon the removal of our glasses, I desired him to read his petition, which he did very promptly and easily; though at the same time it set forth, that he could see nothing distinctly, and was within a very few degrees of being utterly blind; concluding with a prayer, that

| Thus far, chiefly, or only, Mr. Addison. What follows, to the end, Sir Richard Steele's.

upon the fair.

he might be permitted to strengthen and extend his sight by a glass. In answer to this, I told him, he might sometimes extend it to his own destruction. “As you are now (said I) you are out of the reach of beauty; the shafts of the finest eyes lose their force before they can come at you; you cannot distinguish a toast from an orange-wench ; you can see a whole circle of beauty without any interruption from an impertinent face to discompose you.

In short, what are snares for others”—My petitioner would hear no more, but told me very seriously, “ Mr. Bickerstaffe, you quite mistake your man; it is the joy, the pleasure, the employment of my life, to frequent public assemblies, and gaze

In a word, I found his use of a glass was occasioned by no other infirmity but hið vanity, and was not so much designed to make him see, as to make him be seen and distinguished by others. I therefore refused him a licence for a perspective, but allowed him a pair of spectacles, with full permission to use them in any public assembly as he should think fit. He was followed by so very few of this order of men, that I have reason to hope this sort of cheats are almost at an end.

The orange-flower-men appeared next with petitions, perfumed so strongly with musk, that I was almost overcome with the scent; and for my own sake, was obliged forthwith to licence their handkerchiefs, especially when I found they had sweetened them at Charles Lillie's, and that some of their persons would not be altogether inoffensive without them. John Morphew, whom I have made the general of my dead men, acquainted me, that the petitioners were all of that order, and could produce certificates to prove it if I required it. I was so well pleased with this way of their embalming themselves, that I commanded the abovesaid Morphew to give it in orders to his whole army, that every one who did not surrender himself up to be disposed of by the upholders, should use the same method to keep himself sweet during his present state of putrefaction. I finished

my session with great content of mind, reflecting upon the good I had done; for however slightly men may regard these particularities and little follies in dress and behaviour, they lead to greater evils. The bearing to be laughed at for such singularities, teaches us insensibly an impertinent fortitude, and enables us to bear public censure

for things which more substantially deserve it. By this means they open a gate to folly, and oftentimes render a man so ridiculous, as discredit his virtues and capacities, and unqualify them from doing any good in the world. Besides, the giving in to uncommon habits of this nature, is a want of that humble deference which is due to mankind ; and (what is worst of all) the certain indication of some secret flaw in the mind of the person that commits them. When I was a young man, I remember a gentleman of great integrity and worth was very remarkable for wearing a broad belt, and a hanger instead of a fashionable sword, though in all other points

a very well-bred man. I suspected him at first sight to have something wrong in him, but was not able for a long while to discover any collateral proofs of it. I watched him narrowly for six and thirty years, when at last, to the surprise of everybody but myself, who had long expected to see the folly break out, he married his own cook-maid.

[Sir Richard Steele joined in this paper. T.]

Pronaque cum spectant animalia cætera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri
Jussit.-

OVID, MET.

Sheer Lane, December 16. It is not to be imagined how great an effect well-disposed lights, with proper forms and orders in assemblies, have upon some tempers. I am sure I feel it in so extraordinary a manner, that I cannot in a day or two get out of my

imagination any very beautiful or disagreeable impression which I receive on such occasions. For this reason, I frequently look in at the play-house, in order to enlarge my thoughts, mind with some new ideas, that may

be viceable to me in

my

lucubrations. In this disposition I entered the theatre the other day, and placed myself in a corner of it, very convenient for seeing, without being myself observed. I found the audience hushed in a very deep attention, and did not question but some noble tragedy was just then in its crisis, or that an in

and warm my

ser

cident was to be unravelled which would determine the fate of a hero. While I was in this suspense, expecting every moment to see my friend Mr. Betterton appear in all the majesty of distress, to my unspeakable amazement there came up a monster with a face between his feet; and as I was looking on, he raised himself on one leg in such a perpendicular posture, that the other grew in a direct line above his head. It afterwards twisted itself into the motions and wreathings of several different animals, and after great variety of shapes and transformations, went off the stage in the figure of an human creature. The admiration, the applause, the satisfaction of the audience, during this strange entertainment, is not to be expressed. I was very much out of countenance for

my dear countrymen, and looked about with some apprehension for fear any foreigner should be present. Is it possible (thought I) that human nature can rejoice in its disgrace, and take pleasure in seeing its own figure turned to ridicule, and distorted into forms that raise horror and aversion? There is something disingenuous and immoral in the being able to bear such a sight. Men of elegant and noble minds are shocked at seeing the characters of persons who deserve esteem for their virtue, knowledge, or services to their country, placed in wrong lights, and by misrepresentation made the subject of buffoonery. Such a nice abhorrence is not indeed to be found among the vulgar; but, methinks it is wonderful, that these who have nothing but the outward figure to distinguish them as men, should delight in seeing it abused, vilified, and disgraced.

I must confess, there is nothing that more pleases me, in all that I read in books, or see among mankind, than such passages as represent human nature in its proper dignity. As man is a creature made up of different extremes, he has something in him very great and very mean : a skilful artist may draw an excellent picture of him in either views. The finest authors of antiquity have taken him on the more advantageous side. They cultivate the natural grandeur of the soul, raise in her a generous ambition, feed her with hopes of immortality and perfection, and do all they can to widen the partition between the virtuous and the vicious, by making the difference betwixt them as great as between gods and brutes. In short, it is impossible to read a page in Plato, Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists, without being

a

a VOL. II.

E